The New 34 St-Hudson Yards Station is open to customers. The station is a modern marvel with 21st Century amenities
that introduces subway service to the far West Side of midtown Manhattan, fostering transit-oriented development in the emerging, mixed-use community there. The new station links to 18 subway lines, essentially connecting the rest of the city to this new developing neighborhood and offering easy access
to the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the High Line, the newly opened Hudson River Park, and ferries.

The new station opened September 13, 2015

The new station is the MTA's 469th subway station, the first addition to the subway system in 26 years. It brings the Flushing Line to 34th Street & 11th Avenue, at the heart of what is quickly becoming midtown Manhattan's newest neighborhood.
The culmination of 8 years of construction, the subway extension makes it possible for new housing, office buildings, restaurants, entertainment and other commercial establishments to grow on the Far West Side in an area now being referred to as Hudson Yards.

The new subway terminal improves service reliability for all riders of the Line in Queens and Manhattan by providing additional storage space for trains.

The station includes five above-ground components:

Main Station Entrance & Ventilation Building at 11th Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets (known as Site J during construction)

Secondary Station Entrance at 11th Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets (still under construction - Site P)

Ventilation Building at 41st Street and Dyer Avenue (known as Site L during construction)

Ventilation Building at 11th Avenue between 35th and 37th Streets (known as Site K during construction)

Ventilation Building at 11th Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets (known as Site A during construction)

Station Amenities

The 34 St-Hudson Yards Station has three public floors — the upper mezzanine (27.6 feet below street level), the lower mezzanine (109 feet below street level) and the platform level (125 feet below street level).
Access from the street level to the upper mezzanine at the main entrance is provided by four low-rise escalators and two staircases. An ADA elevator located in the new park outside of the main entrance provides access to the upper mezzanine. From the upper mezzanine, customers can access the lower mezzanine using five high-rise escalators and the two inclined elevators. Eight sets of stairs
and one ADA elevator provide access from the lower mezzanine to the platform level.

Among the station’s modern amenities, the platform level is air-tempered, maintaining a year-round temperature between 72 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Notably, the station houses the longest column-free platform and the longest escalators inside any station. Two inclined elevators between the upper and lower mezzanines travel at a speed of 100 feet per minute and can accomodate five wheelchairs or 15 standing customers to comply with ADA requirements.

The station also features 12 Help Point Intercoms that allow customers to communicate with the station agent or the Rail Control Center in the case of an emergency. The station is adorned with 24 55” digital screens on the lower mezzanine that will show advertising and service notices from New York City Transit.

Eight On-the-Go screens, cell phone connectivity and Wi-Fi will be added in the near future, all of which will provide a new level of service and communications for customers. Countdown clocks will come to the station upon completion of the installation of Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) slated for 2017.

The Line Subway Project utilized Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) technology. Two TBMs were brought to the construction site in pieces. The component parts were lowered down a shaft at 11th Avenue and 26th Street, and assembled underground in a chamber
that had previously been created by controlled blasting. Thereafter, each TBM followed a laser-guided path to precisely tunnel along the Line extension’s new route to another cavern that had been blasted out of the bedrock deep below 11th Avenue
between 33rd and 37th Streets, where the new 34th Street Station is now located. The TBMs were disassembled, pulled through the station cavern, reassembled at its north end, and each relaunched on a path that eventually took it under the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Throughout its operation, as each TBM progressed with mining it also placed pre-manufactured consecutive sets of concrete liner rings in its wake, to form the finished tunnel. Each of the tunnel liner rings was comprised of six pre-cast concrete segments, all perfectly matched to fit together to form the 19.5 foot diameter tunnel.

Ground Freezing

The Line Subway Extension is considered to be the first instance of a TBM mining through a substantial length of artificially frozen earth in New York City. As the two Tunnel Boring Machines used for this project were designed
to mine through solid rock, ground freezing was employed in an area where the tunnel paths were projected to go through wet soil and rocks, not solid bedrock. The process simulated bedrock by placing steel pipes into the soft ground area, then filling them with and continually re-circulating a cold brine solution. The brine “froze” the ground, creating a solid rock-like state. To accomplish this, project personnel drilled and installed
over 240 freeze pipes from 80 to 106 feet deep. The ground freezing design provided a 325 foot zone of frozen earth that the TBMs could bore through as if it were rock. This allowed the TBMs to traverse the area as planned, maintaining their proper course as well as supporting the tunnels.

The operation took about 10 weeks to reach a frozen state where mining could commence, and was kept frozen for an additional 3 months until the two TBMs had passed through the area and lined the tunnels. It is believed this was the first time in the world TBMs both mined and placed precast concrete tunnel liners in a ‘ground freeze’ area.

The Underpinning of the 8th Avenue Subway

In order to make way for the TBMs to connect with existing tail tracks from Times Square, the construction team had to underpin the 8th Avenue line at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Underpinning is a process where the existing foundations of a structure are adjusted, sometimes being strengthened and sometimes involving the shifting of loads from existing structures to temporary or new ones. The underpinning process required excavation
of rock by hand and machinery to create a space for mini piles to be installed around the existing support columns. These mini piles were then connected to steel girders to further reinforce the new support system. Once all the mini piles were installed, the load was then transferred, allowing work crews to further excavate below the subway. A final load transfer of 500 tons was placed onto a series of permanent concrete pillars that were
installed to support the new foundation of the 8th Avenue subway. This work was performed at night and with minimal impact to train service.

Low Vibration Track

The new station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue is the third station in the New York City subway system that employs low vibration tracks. These specialized tracks will provide a smoother, quieter and more comfortable ride for customers, decrease the need for track maintenance, and contribute to environmental sustainability by eliminating the use of wooden track blocks.

Continuous Welded Rail Train

A unique delivery system was set up to transport the rails from an assembly yard in Brooklyn to the Line project site on the West Side of Manhattan. This system improved the safety and created cost savings for the track installation. Five 78 foot segments
of track were welded together to form a 390 foot “stringer” which was loaded onto a special service train that transported six rails across Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan. To watch a video of this process click here.